Brennan-Style Subterfuge and Media Leaks Behind Controversial Intel Memo

Biden holdovers author a shoddy analysis to sabotage President Trump's Alien Enemies Act proclamation complete with well-timed leaks to Trump-hostile reporters.

If John Brennan is furious, good things are happening.

The former CIA director and Russiagate architect is “livid” about the firing last week of two longtime intelligence officers by President Trump’s top spy chief. “It’s appalling and outrageous and demonstrates why Tulsi Gabbard never should have been confirmed as director of national intelligence,” Brennan, his voice trembling with rage, said on MSNBC. “This is going to have real reverberations in the workforce.”

Brennan’s tirade related to Gabbard’s dismissal of Michael Collins and Maria Langan-Riekhof, the top officials at the National Intelligence Council (NIC). Collins was appointed acting chair of the council, which operates under the massive umbrella of the intelligence community and conducts international threat assessments, by Joe Biden in 2022. “Michael and Maria are really the quintessential analysts that you want to have providing insight and analysis and information to policymakers,” Brennan claimed, touting the pair’s “sixty years of combined experience” in the intelligence field.

But a recent report prepared by these “quintessential analysts” appears to instead be a remnant of the institutional partisanship left behind by Brennan and his sidekick, James Clapper, Barack Obama’s intelligence chief.

During their tenure, Brennan and Clapper, along with former FBI Director James Comey—last seen using beach rocks to threaten the president—weaponized the intel community to target Obama’s political enemies then worked with friendly news organizations to leak sensitive information to damage Trump.

History is repeating itself. Similar to Brennan’s bogus intelligence assessment claiming the Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help Donald Trump win—a document that successfully sowed doubt over the legitimacy of Trump’s victory, derailed the first half of presidency, and prompted a criminal investigation into alleged Trump-Russia election collusion—the latest intel report is aimed at undermining the president’s Alien Enemies Act (AEA) proclamation.

This is What Passes for a Serious Intel Product?

In February, the State Department designated Tren de Aragua—described as a “brutal criminal group [that] has conducted kidnappings, extorted businesses, bribed public officials, [and] authorized its members to attack and kill U.S. law enforcement”—a foreign terrorist organization; the following month, President Trump cited ties between TdA and the Venezuelan government as the basis for his AEA proclamation, which authorized the immediate removal of illegal Venezuelans associated with the gang.

“TdA is undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the [Nicolas] Maduro regime in Venezuela,” the March 14 proclamation reads. “TdA is closely aligned with, and indeed has infiltrated, the Maduro regime, including its military and law enforcement apparatus.”

But the memo authored by Collins and Langan-Riekhof refutes that determination. “While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TdA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with the TdA and is not directing TdA movement to and operations in the United States,” the partially redacted document, released by Gabbard in response to a FOIA request, stated.

To arrive at such a dubious finding, the analysts engaged in an obvious game of rhetorical whiplash—lots of ”yes, but” prevarications that represent a reckless effort to minimize the danger posed by TdA in the U.S. so Trump foes, including federal judges, can wield the imprimatur of the intelligence community to halt the president’s policy. It is a shoddy piece of work; the word “probably” does a lot of heavy lifting in the hastily prepared document. (It runs a mere five pages.)

After all, how can the NIC admit in the analysis that “mid- to low-level Venezuelan officials probably profit from TDA’s illicit activities” and “some government officials may cooperate with TdA for financial gain” yet still with a straight face dismiss ties between the two?

The memo on one hand condemned the Maduro regime for “lack of transparency” but simultaneously argued that the nonexistence of “top down directives” from Maduro officials to TdA leaders exonerates any connection between the two.

Further, the memo acknowledged that the unprecedented spike of illegal Venezuelans at the southern border during the Biden years “could include some TdA members.” The mass exodus from Venezuela—nearly 8 million residents have left since 2014 with at least 600,000 illegally entering the U.S. from 2021 to 2023—benefits Maduro as a result of “the logistical, financial, and political headaches that unregulated migrations has caused for the US government, its perceived principal adversary.”

But the memo nonetheless insisted “the Maduro regime probably is not systematically directing Venezuelan outflows.”

Huh?

Leaks Under Investigation and For Real This Time

Also in Brennan-like style, well placed leaks to Trump-hostile news organizations spawned the imaginary controversy; an early version of the NIC memo was disclosed to the media a few days after the president signed the AEA proclamation. “American intelligence agencies circulated findings last month that stand starkly at odds with Mr. Trump’s claims, according to officials familiar with the matter,” the New York Times reported on March 20. “The document…summarized the shared judgment of the nation’s spy agencies that the gang was not controlled by the Venezuelan government.”

Following the publication of that article, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on March 21 announced a criminal investigation into the leak, calling it “politically motivated efforts by the Deep State to undercut President Trump’s agenda.” Joe Kent, Gabbard’s chief of staff, reportedly asked Collins a few days later to re-evaluate the NIC’s initial analysis that had been leaked to the media. “But after re-examining the relevant evidence collected by agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the council on April 7 reaffirmed the original findings,” the NYT disclosed last week.

The full content of the NIC memo was then leaked to the Washington Post on April 17 to coincide with court proceedings in AEA lawsuits in Washington, Texas, and SCOTUS.

That leak presumably is one of at least 11 unauthorized disclosures under investigation by Gabbard’s office. During an interview last week, Gabbard revealed that she has sent three criminal referrals related to leaks to the Department of Justice. They are, Gabbard said, are an attempt to “directly undermine the agenda and actions of President Trump.”

But regardless of the administration’s objection to the NIC memo—Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday the findings were “wrong”—lawyers representing the illegal gang bangers no doubt will use the document as evidence in their favor. The use of the AEA is currently the subject of numerous lawsuits as well as an historic battle at the Supreme Court, which has twice intervened to offer relief to the illegals covered by the AEA. Over the weekend, SCOTUS in a 7-2 decision sent a key case back to a Texas appellate court to determine how much notice the government must provide prior to deportation.

With the ghosts of IC’s past—especially Brennan and Clapper—Gabbard has her work cut out for her.